were doing in terms of supporting ukraine. what i found out was that zero or near zero dollars for ukraine in lethal aid. as vocal as the europeans are about supporting ukraine, they are really, really stingy when it comes to lethal aid. i know this is a long answer to your question but i'm still going. those were the driving factors. did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the dnc server? absolutely. no question about that. that's it, and that's why we held up the money. >> so the demand for an investigation into the democrats was part of the reason that he was ordered to withhold funding to ukraine? >> the look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation. and that is absolutely

appropriate. which ultimately then flowed. we worried if we didn't pay out the money it would be illegal, it would be unlawful. that is one of those things that has a little shred of truth in it that makes it look a lot worse than it really is. we were concerned about, over at omb, about impoundment. i know i put half of you to bed, but there is the budget and impoundment act of '74 that says if congress appropriates money, you have to spend it. we knew that money had to go out the door by the end of september or we had to have a really good reason not to do it. >> to be clear, what you described appears into the democratic server happened as well. >> we do that all the time with foreign policy.

we were holding up aid to the northern triangle countries so they would change their policies on immigration. by the way, and this speaks to -- i'm sorry? this speaks to an important point because i heard this yesterday and i can never remember the gentleman who testified. was it mckinney? i don't remember, he testified yesterday. if you believe the news reports -- i vaen seen any transcripts of thd -- if you believed ldly. i have news fofr everybody. et this is going to happen. elections have consequences and the foreign policy is going to change from the obama nangs. they're saying, i don't like

the. your foreign spoefl going to change. own observe did it in bun way rkt we're doing the. >> did that come into kmpgs frgs. just to follow up on that question. when you say politics are going to be involved, the question here is not just about a political decision about how you want to run the government, this is about investigating politibi. are you saying it's okay for the government to hold up aid and allow a foreign government to investigate lengths to the president. >> you're talking about the next election. >> even the dcs -- let -- there

is an ongoing investigation by the department of justice into the 2016 election. i can't remember the person's name. durham, okay? that's an ongoing investigation. you're saying the president of the united states, the chief law enforcement person, cannot ask somebody to cooperate with an ongoing public investigation into wrongdoing? that's just bizarre to me that you would think that you can't do that. >> so you would say it's fine to ask about the dnc but not biden. biden is running for the democratic nomination for 2020. >> that's a hypothetical statement because that did not happen here. >> no, no, on the call the president did ask about investigating the bidens. are you saying the money that was held up, that had nod with biden.

that was my point to you. >> and you're drawing a distinction. >> i was involved by the process with which the money was held up temporarily, all right? three issues for that. the corruption in the country, whether or not they were assisting with ukraine or whether or not they are cooperating with an ongoingme. >> with regard to the testimony going on at the state department, he reportedly testified that you asked him to step down from any issues regarding ukraine. is that true? >> who said that? >> george kemp. >> i'm sorry, i don't know who that is. is that someone who testified this week sfchlt. >> also, another stirngz --

question. there was a phone call with president zelensky. do you recall you were in on that phone call? >> nobody here has difficulty with the call. we do think the call is perfect. we don't think there is any difficulty with the call at all. i read it several times. no one raised any dwilt hadment. no one many. let's let you know what we're doing inside. >> smmz f. you have the house doing what they're going to do,

isn't it easy to loong. . you don't have a war room when you haven't done anything wrong. clinton had a wafr room. >> i say that, but you don't expect to get it. yes, we're having lawyers look at it, we're having our pr person to do that ooempltly been stwelg the krat prl. we certainly haven't done much legislating since they've been here. >> in light of the depositions we've heard, do you believe that rudy giuliani's role as an outside adviser to the president

is problematic? >> that's the president's call. steve scalise got to ask a similar question on television. i thought his answer was great, which was, look, you may not like the fact -- in fact, understand from reading his testimony, gordon sondland didn't like the fact he was involved and said so in his testimony. you may not like the fact that giuliani was involved. that's great, that's fine. it's not illegal, it's not impeachable, the president gets to use whatever he wants to use. the president gets to set foreign policy and he gets to choose who to do so. as long as he doesn't violate any law as far as r. >> did the president invite anyone else on work rudy giuliani in ukraine? >> yes, the may meeting, and i think this has been reported,

that in the may meeting of the overly office that i was in, i think senator johnson was there as well as mr. volker was there, the president asked rick perry to work with mr. giuliani. >> did you think that was appropriate when you were asked as well? >> i wasn't asked. >> that was my question, whether you or anyone else was asked. >> and the president told rick perry who was sort of -- one of the reasons they were in there was to talk about energy. we're very interested in trying to get ukraine as an energy partner. that's why secretary perry was so heavily involved and that's when the president said to mr. perry, go ahead and talk to rudy. >> isn't that a shadow foreign policy? >> what is a shadow foreign policy -- >> the president you said the normal channels.

>> who else is in the room when the president is having this conversation, okay? it's gordon sondland, our ambassador to the eu, kurt volker, who is our special designated envoy to the ukraine. i sat next to mike pompeo yesterday at the meeting with the congressional leaders, and i said, look, i understand i coordinated a coup against you by putting sondland and volker in charge of ukraine policy. he liens baeans back and says, w he works for me. >> just to follow on that question, can you describe the role that you played in pressuring ukraine to investigate the bidens? and secondly, can you walk us through the meeting that president trump was dangling over zelensky?

did you do anything to pressure ukraine to investigate the bidens? >> no. what's the second question? >> the second question was about the meeting you were supposed to have in here at the white house between the two presidents. could you walk us through the discussions of that meeting? what was on the table for a pre-condition and was the investigation of burisma ever brought up as a condition to meet with president trump? >> no, not to me, and not to anybody i know of. i was never in a conversation that had the word buri srksburi. >> investigating the bidens, then. >> or the bidens. the president didn't want to take the meeting. rick perry was pushing for that -- r.

>> he was never realistically entertaining a meeting about them to visit their country or have them come here. i don't remember a serious conversation about setting up an actual meeting. there were no dates discussed. i saw that as one of the typical pleasantries that we have, and i don't think it was dangling a meeting or anything like that. >> did the president welcome president erdogan to the white house november 13th? >> i think that depends how the next couple days go. it's still on the schedule, and i understand that vice president pence's meeting is going much longer than it's expected today. i home they're. the president isn't have i clear about what he wants to see,

echlts you could go down the long list of things the president has mentioned to president erdogan. if we're able. >> you just said you were involved in the protsz in which the money being held up temporarily, you named a few issues for that, and whether or not the country was assisting in an ongoing investigation. how is that not an establishment of an exchange of a quid pro quo? >> those are the terms that you used. go look at what gordon sondland said today in his testimony, was that -- in his opening statement he said something along the lines of they were trying to get the deliverable. the deliver anl was a statement by ukraine about how they were going to deal with corruption. read your testimony if you haven't already.

that's in the ordinary course of business. this is what you do when you have someone come to the white house, either arrange a visit to the president, you have a phone call to the president. a lot of times we. you can sort of announce that on the phone call or at the meeting. this is the ordinary course of foreign policy. >> is it appropriate for any president or this president to pressure a foreign country to investigate a political point? >> every time i get that question, it's like, when did you stop beating your wife. it assumes the president has done that. we sdlanlt. >> the president's personal attorney, rudy giuliani, says he sees his work intertwined when

it comes to ukraine. political interest as president of the political candidate, does that align with our interestsly mr. giuliani said there is an attorney-client privilege issue because he was working for the president. is that inappropriate? >> i don't know anything inappropriate about that. the lady in the back. yes, ma'am. >> thank you, mr. mulvaney. you said you were supporting the party but not like previous administrations. how does the president think about north correspokorea.

>> there are public reports that you are addressing to the president's official family to the point of cuccinelli to head up the department of technology. is that so, and if so, what is your objection to his possible appointment? >> i have none and i hothink he would do a good job. >> so if there was no quid pro quo on the call, if it was routine, if he didn't even want to do it and it's all on the up and up, why did it have to go into this more restricted server? why was it moved from sun server to the other? >> it's a good one to finish on. i'm not going to answer your

question the way you want me, so i do want to address it. here's why. there's only one reason people care about it, right? that's because they think there's a cover-up. some of them hope there was a cover-up. there's something about the way they mishandled. had if we wanted to cover this up, would we call the department of justice right away and have them look at the tape? if we wanted to cover this up, would we have released it to the public? i'm glad all this concern about how the document has been edited and what do the ellipses stand

for. i heard adam schiff go on there the other day and say, we don't need it now, because it's right here. you don't give it to the president and say, here it is, if dwryou're trying to cover something up. you can stop asking the questions in there because there's no cover-up and we can prove it by our actions. >> we could do this all night. i'm not taking any more. it's nice to see everybody. have a good night. >> wow. the white house acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. there are a lot of names in the scandal that he names that are giving data points about just how broad this effort to investigate joe biden was. mick mulvaney confirmed that the president asked rudy giuliani to

work on the election campaign, and he said ukraine was tied to a political opponent. certainly he said the dnc. i want to bring in dana bash and gloria borger to talk about this. what did you make of this that he said, yes, aid was tied to an investigation, and he said elections have consequences and get over it. >> he tried to portray this as business as usual. there is nothing wrong with this. he made the case. what's wrong with asking a leader to cooperate with the justice department in investigating corruption in our own country? he didn't care that it was about the 2016 election. on every single point, he made the case nothing wrong. we do business that way, business has always been done that way, and there is nothing nefarious, there was no cover-up, business as usual. what was very telling was that before they released the summary of the call, they called the

justice department, he said, and had them look at it, and i guess the justice department thought that it was just fine. so he keeps saying, we do this all the time regarding foreign policy. nothing wrong. if rudy giuliani is going to be working on this for the president, so be it, we all work for the president, it's his call. >> go on. >> just to pick up on that, adam perez was talking about this yesterday, he was hearing it from his sources and we just saw it confirmed in a big way from the podium of the white house, the chief of staff of the president is trying to reframe this, as gloria just mentioned, reframe this as, so what, we did it. but the "it" they are saying is we asked the ukranian government to look into allegations of past corruption with regard to an american election.

and that was tied with america giving aid to them. here's the problem with that. first of all, that may or may not be illegal. that's kind of irrelevant. the problem is the president himself was asking prospectively, saying, i want you to look into my next opponent which is very different from looking in the past. never mind what they were allegedly asking the ukranians to look into as a debunked conspiracy theory. put that aside. they were trying to parse this very carefully. they have been sort of moving down that road, and mick mulvaney just tried to put the flag down on this defense. >> right, and it's the president's defense and it's always been, i did that, so what? i had this phone conversation, so what? we're having the g-7 at the doral, as mulvaney announced, as the president's resort. so what? it was the best place we could come up with in the entire

united states that a previous g-7 was at camp david, and that was lousy. so it's sort of this doubling down, tripling down as donald trump always does, and what we saw today was a performance made for donald trump who i'm sure was watching and he's doubling and tripling down that what we did was legitimate, correct, legal, and why would you think we would do anything else? >> i want to bring in jim acosta. he was there in the briefing room. something that stands out to me, jim, is he made the case for why this was so normal and there is nothing to see here, and yet simultaneously mick mulvaney tried to distance himself personally from what went on. he was asked if he had a role in pressuring ukraine. he was asked about if he had a role in kind of dangling a meeting with president zelensky. we know that john bolton, the former national security adviser, referred to a drug deal that mick mulvaney was cooking up here, but mick mulvaney was trying to stay very far away from that.

>> brianna, this has become the catch us if you can administration. what you heard from mick mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, a few moments ago was pretty mind-blowing. what he said to this room full of reporters is that it is illegai legal, it is appropriate for the white house to hold foreign aid from a country unless they investigate the opposing political party in this country. mick mulvaney denied after we tried to follow up with him that holding up -- or tried to deny that investigating joe biden was at the heart of this, but he did acknowledge that, yes, part of the deal, in order for ukraine to get this money that was being held up, was to investigate what had happened in 2016, this unproven, baseless conspiracy theory that the democratic party was somehow behind this plot to deny donald trump from becoming president in 2016. and, you know, one of the other things that you heard from mick mulvaney is, well, if the

president wants to put rudy giuliani in charge of it, that's okay, too, that there's nothing yong wi wrong with that, nothing to see here as well. i think the catch me if you can even goes to doral, the president's golf resort, for the 2020 g-7. they seem to say if the president decides he's doing this, it's appropriate and it's legal, and that is why it's up to democrats on capitol hill and a growing number of republicans to decide, you know, whether or not all of this will be held accountable. make no mistake, this was a bit of a movement here that we saw in the briefing room, brianna, that the acting chief of staff was saying, he's just joking around asking for china's skmep -- help and so on, he acknowledges in the briefing room that part of the reason that money was being held up in ukraine was they wanted cooperation into this

investigation, into the dnc and what happened in 2016. i think that's probably a pretty remarkable admission coming from the acting chief of staff. you could almost read between the lines here where the acting chief of staff was almost saying to everybody in the room here, catch us in you can. >> it was remarkable, jim. stand by for us because we're going to be covering this for a little while here. i want to talk to our legal analyst jim baker. jim, you listened to this with mick mulvaney. what did you think? >> so the idea that any of this is normal is just absurd. this is just not normal. the question, i think, for the country and for congress is whether the activity here for a number of individuals was illegal and unconstitutional. mulvaney was right, the president does have broad authority to conduct operations

of the united states, but that authority is not unlimited. he has a lot of power but he shouldn't abuse that power, and he shouldn't abuse that power in order to serve his political opponents, past and future, and not abuse his power in order to stay in power by investigating his most likely opponent in the upcoming 2020 election. with respect to other people -- >> sorry, go on. >> i was just going to say, the focus on the president's conduct should be whether his conduct was unconstitutional in the sense that it was an abuse of power. that's what congress should be focused on. with respect to all these other people involved in these activities, diplomats, giuliani, all these other people, the chief of staff himself, the question there for them is whether their activities were unconstitutional but also whether they violated any criminal statutes which the ones that come to mind are the foreign agents registration act, and based on what i'm hearing,

i'm concerned about violations called the anti-deficiency act which prohibits expenditure of public moneys except as authorized by congress and prohibits accepting voluntary services from other people. that's a criminal statute as well, so i think that has to be investigated by the justice department, by the fbi at a minimum. >> because the president's lawyer appears to be working pro bono for him, even though he certainly can afford to pay his lawyer. >> is he working for the people -- sorry, brianna. is he working for the people -- >> that's the question that it raises, right? who is paying him, who is he working for? i do want to ask you about another point mulvaney made which is he likened holding up military aid to ukraine to holding up aid to northern triangle companies for not doing something on immigration. obviously there is a huge influx of people coming to the u.s. border coming from the northern triangle countries.

why is that not the same thing? >> because the president -- it was what the holdup was linked to, as we all know. the american people are people who have a lot of common sense and we can understand things, and we can differentiate things. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the president trying to hold up money in pursuit of some legitimate national objective is different from him trying to hold up money oren gauge in any other government activity in order to serve his own personal, political interests in staying in power. this is what the framers of the constitution were worried about, the president doing things to try to keep himself in power. that's one of the chief things they were concerned about. >> all right, jim, i want to bring in dana bash and gloria into this conversation of the

this w -- thf -- he said yes, you can talk to giuliani about ukraine. we heard about the relationship of giuliani not being paid by -- who was he being paid by? he was being paid by ukranian businessmen, 500 grand, who had been payingmoney, according to an indictment. so the president says talk to him. >> that's what i see being linked to the president and could potentially be used in the articles of impeachment, is did the president know that his lawyer, who as far as we know is not getting paid by the president, was -- >> he says he's not. >> -- was at least working on getting paid by the ukranians or people linked to the ukranians. the very people that the president is directing him to make contact with to help create

national/international policy. >> linked to ukranians who maybe don't exactly like what the ukranians did and maybe linked to russians, too. >> just the basic notion of giuliani not being -- not working for the government -- there is a reason why people who work for the government are not allowed to take money from the outside. it's because it causes major conflicts of interest, which is why, you know, you don't use your private attorney or your friend or somebody who might be being paid by the very people you're trying to influence. there are so many conflicts. >> and these guys who are associates of rudy giuliani's -- >> igor and lev. >> that's right, they have been charged for pushing foreign money into the u.s. political system, including a huge donation to the trump superpac. >> right, and the president has said he knows nothing about that. you can look at this in a couple of ways. one is that rudy giuliani was playing a game on both sides

here. he was pleasing the president because he was pushing for investigations into burisma, which we know equals joe biden, and into the 2020 election at the same time he pointed out he was making money off the ukranians. whether the president knew that rudy giuliani was making money off the ukranians has yet to be discovered, but giuliani was playing both sides of this. as far as the president was concerned, when giuliani is whispering in his ear, i'm trying to get this done so that zelensky will look into biden, the president is happy with that as he told all of his foreign policy leaders dealing with ukraine in an oval office meeting on may 23rd. he said to them, talk to rudy. ukraine is corrupt. and they were all shaking their

heads. why do we have to talk to rudy? and then they figured it out. so giuliani has got a little game going here. >> we've been seeing all these diplomats testify on capitol hill. mick mulvaney really tried to minimize what we've been hearing from them. it was interesting how he tried to do it. he tried to do it kind of by not remembering most of their names. let's listen. >> i can never remember the gentleman who testified -- mckinney, is that his name? i don't know him. he testified yesterday. i can't remember the other person's name, durham. >> who said that? >> it was george kemp. >> i'm sorry, i don't know who he is. is that someone who testified this week? i don't believe i talked to anybody named george kent in my life. >> what did you think of that? >> i have to say -- >> does he need a better rolo dax or memory? >> first of all, you called him out on it but it is quite obvious what he is trying to do. those people don't matter? who are they? >> and it's not mckinney.

>> b but he's trying to say they're not relevant, they wouldn't know anything from adam, and that's it. >> the president says, i don't even know that person. >> but then you could flip that and say, well, shouldn't the white house chief of staff know a high-ranking official in the state department? shouldn't -- these are points you should make -- i mean, i would make, that if you're at that level, you should actually know the people who are responsible for making u.s. policy. >> and maybe he does, right? >> that's the argument he's making, but you can turn that on its head. >> you said there is a problem with him making -- you were going to say something. i interrupted you. there is a problem with him making this argument? were you saying that? all right, never mind. gloria filled in the gap there. >> you filled in my gap. >> let's also talk about -- i

thought it was interesting when we learned this g-7 part of things, that he's going to host the g-7 at his club, right, which we knew was a possibility, but it's very -- i don't know if it's surprising, but it is certainly a breach of protocol, right? but what does that say -- i don't mean to go off on this tangent about that, because it actually sort of speaks to the broad thing that we saw mulvaney doing. >> they don't care. he doesn't care. there is a shame factor that has been missing. that chip has been missing since day one, and that has been the through line of all of these issues. and the latest is doral. what did mick mulvaney say to the question about, was it the president's idea? yeah tfr yeah, it was the president's idea. how about doral? that's not a crazy suggestion. are you worried about these foreign leaders who look to this

country as sort of a beacon? you know what his answer was? no. next question. >> they don't care. self-dealing is not in the vocabulary, and what mulvaney was saying was, look, if we do it, it's just fine. thls the best place in the entire united states, and the president suggested it and thought it was a great idea. and, again, it goes back to what dana was saying, which is, yes, we're doing it, so what? >> to that point, jim baker, we have this so what, i don't care element as dana and gloria just put it, how much is what a president does, what a white house does normally governed by norms rather than actually any kind of rule, law that actually has a somewhat expedient consequence that might deter someone who likes to push boundaries from pushing them and

blowing right through snthem? >> the president over the past several years has destroyed the different norms that applied historically in the united states. the question is whether he's abusing his power. look, this issue with the doral country club is part of a pattern of corruption. there is no other way to say it, and self-dealing as i think gloria was saying, that goes back several years. the mueller report is replete with examples of a pattern of corruption that should be unacceptable in this country, and the question is whether the congress of the united states and ultimately the voters are going to hold the president accountable for all of this. even if he has the power to do these kinds of things, the question is whether he's abusing that power? is he going too far? >> jim baker, i'm going to have to pause because the vice president and the secretary of state are starting to speak in turkey. >> earlier this week president trump took decisive action to

call on turkish forces to stand down, to end the violence, to agree to negotiations. and today i'm proud to report, thanks to the strong leadership of president donald trump and the strong relationship between president erdogan and turkey and the united states of america that today the united states and turkey have agreed to a cease-fire in syria. the turkish side will pause operation peace spring in order to allow for the withdrawal of ypg forces from the safe zone for 120 hours. all military operations under operation peace spring will be paused and operation peace spring will be halted entirely on completion of the withdrawal.

our administration has already been in contact with syria defense forces and we've already begun to facilitate their safe withdrawal from the nearly 20-mile-wide safe zone area south of the turkish border in syria. let me say this also includes an agreement by turkey to engage in no military action against the community of kobani. and in addition, the united states and turkey have both mutually committed to a peaceful resolution and future for the safe zone, working on an international basis to ensure that peace and security defines this border region of syria. in addition to the settlement today with the cease fire,

turkey and the united states mutually committed to the defeat isis activities in north syria, this will also include an agreement renewed today to coordinate efforts on detention facilities and internally displace persons in formerly isis-controlled areas. also, turkey and the united states agree on the priority of respecting vulnerable human life, human rights and particularly the protection of religious and ethnic communities in the region. i spoke to president trump just a few moments ago. and i know the president is very grateful for president erdogan's willingness to step forward to enact this cease fire and to give an opportunity for a

peaceful solution of this conflict that commenced one week ago. for my part, i'm grateful for the president's leadership. i'm grateful for the more than five hours of negotiations with president erdogan and his team that arrived at a solution that we believe will save lives. and let me also say i'm very grateful for this team. to be able to have alongside the secretary of state mike pompeo, our national security adviser robe robert o'brien, ambassador saved sat t satterfield. it's a great privilege. each member of this team worked on a good outcome and it's a good move for a strong and

enduring relationship between the united states and turkey. lastly, i want to express my appreciation to americans who i know are carrying this moment in prayer. we heard from people all over the country whose hearts were heavy with the loss of life in this conflict over the last week, longed to see it come to an end. i believe their prayers, the strong leadership president trump provided to this moment, and the cooperation with president erdogan and turkey has made this possible. so, again, let me say a week after turkish forces crossed into syria, turkey and the united states of america have agreed to a cease fire in syria. it will be a pause in military operations for 120 hours while

the united states facilitates the withdrawal of ypg from the affected areas in the safe zone, and once that is completed, turkey has agreed to a permanent cease fire, and the united states of america will work with turkey, will work with nations around the world to ensure that peace and stability is the order of the day in this safe zone on the border between syria and turkey. with that, let me recognize secretary of state mike pompeo, and thank you, mr. secretary, for your great work. >> thanks. i think the vice president said it but i wanted to add this thought. there obviously remains a great deal of work to do in the region. there is lots of challenges that remain. but this effort tonight sets the conditions for the successful resolution of this particular piece which created a real risk of instability, and president

erdogan's decision tonight to work alongside president trump to reach this end, i think, will be one that will benefit turkey a great deal. i know you want to take some questions. >> go ahead. >> thank you very much. how do you overcome -- how will you overcome the damage that's been caused over the past week? there's been a lot of animosity between the u.s. and turkey. a lot of things have been said and a lot of threats of economic sanctions have been made. how are you going to repair the relationship going forward? thank you. >> well, first, as you'll see from the agreement, part of our understanding is that with the i am p-- implementation of the cease fire, the united states will not impose any further sanctions on turkey. and once a permanent cease fire

is in effect, the president has agreed to withdraw the economic sanctions that were imposed this last monday. make no mistake about it. president trump was very clear with our ally, turkey, about american opposition to turkish military forces entering syria. the president made that clear in his discussions and his correspondence with president erdogan, and i believe that the candor of president trump applied to this and the strength of his relationship with president erdogan both contributed with this agreement to come about. now we will work together to implement this agreement. as i said, our team is already working with a ypg personnel in

the safe zone for an orderly withdrawal outside the 20-mile mark and we're going to go forward together in bringing peace and security to this region. i'm very confident in that. okay, gonja shinite, please. >> reporter: there are reports by some international organizations how they are treating minorities in northern syria. christian leaders in turkey are making calls to the country to ensure peace and security in the region. i'm wondering your thoughts on this. >> well, i'll let the secretary also address that, but i can tell you president erdogan and i spoke at great length about the importance of protecting religious minorities in the

region. president erdogan also shared with me the perspective of many leaders in religious communities here in turkey who had great concerns about violence and persecution taking place along the border. and so part of our agreement is to continue to work very closely to ensure that religious minorities can thrive and that religious pluralism is one of the characteristics of this safe zone for some time to come. mr. secretary? >> we've certainly heard -- the vice president and i heard from christian leaders from around the world that expressed the same concern you just described. we think this reduction in violence, this cease fire, reduces the rick sk of that, so think this greatly contributes to protecting religious minority throughout syria and throughout

the middle east as well. this obviously happens with the context of religious challenges, challenges of religious persecution in iraq and other places. we think this is an important contribution in that regard. the other thing we talked about at some length, to the idea that there is abuse, we will investigate the allegations of abuse that have taken place. >> let me add to that. i know one thing the president and the american people are most proud of is the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars to help rebuild a christian, uziti and other religious minority communities in the aftermath of the horror of violence during the isis period, both in syria and northern iraq. we'll continue to flow those resources to support those communities. but as you'll see from this agreement, it is a specific

undertaking by turkey and by the united states to ensure, to protect religious minorities in the affected region. shawn? >> thank you, mr. vice president. you mentioned there was an organized withdrawal of the ypg fighters. can you tell me more about the agreement with them, where they're going to withdraw from, where they see the future? while there are links to the ppk, they have led against the islamic group, against isis, do you see any future for the syrian kurds politically? >> our commitment with turkey is that we will work with ypg members, and we also know as syria defense forces to

facilitate an orderly withdrawal over the next 120 hours. let me say that's literally already begun. and where they will be withdrawing from is the demarkation line literally 20 miles south of the border. turkey's willingness to pause and embrace a cease fire of military operations to enable us to see to that orderly withdrawal of ypg will, we believe, make it possible for that to occur. i know it's already underway as we speak. look, turkey had a great concern about their border, and while the united states of america did not approve of their military crossing into syria, we have

always endorsed a safe zone, and it was a matter of discussion and negotiations, and we believe that the kurdish population in syria with which we have a strong relationship will continue to endure. and a strong part in defeating isis but we recognize the importance and value of a safe zone to create a buffer between syria proper and the kurdish population and the turkish border, and we're going to be working very closely. so we think the agreement today first ends the violence, which is what president trump sent us here to do. i said it again and again to president erdogan. president trump sent us here to end the violence. and to achieve an immediate

cease-fire. thanks to the agreement that we negotiated today and the strong stand that president trump took, in the preceding days, we've achieved that. we've also achieved and opportunity by working with ypg to move out of the area to create more peace and security and stability in that buffer zone, and we're going to be working very earnestly to accomplish that and believe that can be accomplished during the 120-hour period and after which they'll be a permanent cease-fire and then we'll continue to engage. again, not militarily. the president made it clear that we're not going to have military personnel on the ground, but the united states will continue to engage diplomatically, politically and, of course, in humanitarian aid and support to effect all of the people affected in this region. >> last question. >> go ahead. >> mr. vice president, you

mentioned that -- excuse me -- you mentioned the united states opposed turkey's incursion into northern syria and erdogan always want add safe zone here. what concessions did you chi actually get from president erdogan and terms that they would comply and said they wouldn't do before and with the u.s. sanction in terms with them then moving south how do you address critics that call this second abandonment from the kurds? >> you'll see from the agreement itself what concessions were made. president trump in his telephone call with president erdogan earlier this week and in the directive that he gave us to deliver, was very clear that he, he wanted a cease-fire. he wanted to stop the violence.

turkey's engaged in an active military operation. i can tell you that as our discussions began over the course of the five-hour period of time we've reached a place of agreement about how a cease-fire could benefit turkey, achieve president trump's objectives and also contribute to a peaceful resolution of the safe zone, and i believe that we've accomplished that. with regard to the ypg, syrian defense forces, we have been in contact today, and we have received repeated assurances from them that they'll be moving out. that they greatly welcome the opportunity for a cease-fire to make a safe and orderly withdrawal from those areas in the safe zone where they still have a presence, and we're very

confident that that's already taking place and we're going to be using all of the leverage that we have of having fought alongside syrian defense forces in the battle against isis to facilitate their safe withdrawal, but we think we -- we think this is an outcome that will greatly serve the interests of -- of -- of the kurdish population in syria and greatly serve the interests of turkey and create the kind of long-term buffer zone that will ensure peace and stability in the region. >> mr. vice president, one follow-up on that question. what pacific concessions did turkey receive specifically i want to ask you if they brought the issue up of the bank? >> not in the context of these

negotiations. when he were had concluded the negotiations, the topic was raised, and we informed them that was a matter for the southern district of new york and the justice department. but let me say the concessions that the united states made have to doread not been a cease-fire today there would have been a new round of massive sanctions against turkey, and you'll see in the agreement that on the basis of the pause of 120 hours, a cease-fire over the next five days, that we will not be implementing additional sanctions during that period of time. once we have a permanent cease-fire following the orderly withdrawal of all ypg forces,

the united states also agreed to withdraw the sanctions that were imposed on several cabinet officials and self agencies earlier this week. >> so -- >> did -- >> the u.s. -- >> to be clear, though, to narrow this down. so it was simply the sanctions that would be removed? nothing else was offered or given to the turks? >> yes. right. that's correct. >> thank you, guys. >> one more question, mr. vice president. >> yes. go ahead. go ahead. >> and -- >> thank you, mr. vice president. while you are here negotiating with the turks for several hours, both of you -- can i finish real quick? wait. as select -- do you think the sanctions is a blackmail to nato allies for the sake of the pkk

organization? this is a -- >> the united states of america did not support turkey's military action in syria. president trump made that very clear to his friend president erdogan. the united states imposed sanctions earlier this week, and the president made it clear yesterday and we made it clear again today that there would be additional sanctions coming to bring an end to the violence, to the loss of innocent lives in this border conflict. that being said, let me say, i really believe today, today's cease-fire is a credit to president trump and to president erdogan. it's a credit to the strong relationship between the united states and turkey. it's also a credit to the strong relationship between our two leaders. where there are differences between friends, it's important that the friends let their

feelings be known. president trump did that in this case. but it facilitated us being able to reach an agreement that is now resulted in a cease-fire, and we believe will set the stage for creating a peaceful and stable, a safe zone that the united states is committed to achieving that for all the people of this region. >> mr. vice president, mr. vice president can i finish my question that i started, please? >> all right. vice president mike pence there along with the secretary of state mike pompeo in ankara, turkey, announcing the u.s. and turkey agreed to a cease-fire, 120 hours for kurdish forces to leave the area. clear what's happening, spun by the administration, by the vice president as a "u.s. saves the day" situation, but this is a cleanup mission and by all accounts from critics of the president's, from people who are

normally his allies, this is actually a huge, deadly mess, arguably strategically misguided caused by the u.s. you heard vice president pence say the u.s. did not support the turkish invasion, well, the u.s. made, by all accounts, this turkish invasion of northern syria possible, taking on the kurds, former allies of the u.s. who fought alongside u.s. troops, really taking the brunt. 11,000 casualties in the fight against isis, and this cease-fire just to be clear what's happening here, this is where the kurds live. this is their home. i want to bring in nick paton walsh nearby in erbil, iraq, and barbara starr with us from the pentagon. nick, this is 120 hours for the kurdish forces to leave. this is their home. so this is a situation where the u.s. has brokered certainly ratcheting down the violence so that they can withdraw, but this is not as it would have been made to appear there in this press conference.

>> reporter: look, there's a lot of stuff we simply don't know from hearing vice president pence taug. he hasn't established what he mean bice "the safe zone." if you listen to president erdogan that the entire turkish border where the kurdish live. that area involves major kurdish population centers being evacuated and doesn't seem he means that because he said no military against the major population center of qabani within the particular safe zones payment is missing. a slight clue saying the u.s. always agreed on a safe zone. a security mechanism put in place between towns here which are currently pretty much taken by turkish forces in between them. and what you're looking at is an undefined area in which